Inspired 3D Lighting & Compositing (Paperback)

by David Parrish (Author) "The computer graphics industry represents one of the fastest growing and most dynamic sectors in today's job market..." (more)
Key Phrases: viz lab, comp script, effects supe, Universal Studios, Jurassic Park, Star Wars (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
To survive in today's competitive 3D computer graphics industry, one must possess the technical and artistic skills necessary to create believable visual effects. Through tutorials, interviews, and industry-proven examples, this book provides a complete breakdown of lighting and compositing a digital image or scene, from the basic concepts of lighting to the advanced and challenging special effects used on some of the most well-known feature films in recent history. This exploration of the day-to-day workings of veterans in the visual effects industry makes Inspired 3D Lighting and Compositing a great tool for anyone looking to break into the field.

About the Author
David Parrish went straight to work for Industrial Light & Magic after earning his master's degree from Texas A&M University. During the five years that followed, he worked on several major films including Dragonheart, Return of the Jedi: Special Edition, Jurassic Park: The Lost World, Star Wars: Episode I--The Phantom Menace, Deep Blue Sea, Glaxy Quest, and The Perfect Storm. After five years with ILM and a short stay with a startup company, he was hired by Sony Pictures Imageworks to work on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Course Technology PTR; 1 edition (August 30, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931841497
• ISBN-13: 978-1931841498
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,013,556 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 4 in The Inspired Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing , April 8, 2005

By	smohadjer (Canada) - See all my reviews

I would have given this book less stars if I could. It had nothing to offer to me as an animator who wished to learn more about lighting. I went through the first 50 pages without learning anything new or useful at all. Yes, lots of colorful pictures, but they are either stills from big Hollywood productions which have little if anything at all to do with the text or are specificaly prepared for the book which look so bad you don't even want to read through the text to see how they were made. There are many interviews, but you can find similar ones for free on internet. Digital Lighting & Rendering by Jeremy Birn might be more expensive but is a far far better book than this one.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Pictures not very connected to text, December 29, 2002

By A Customer

When I first got this book, I looked through all the pages, and there was a colour picture at least once every few pages - and many came from famous ILM films such as Jurrasic Park. I looked forward to reading about how these images were lit or rendered or composited -- but (sadly) the text had very little if anything to say about the specific shots, the images often were a tangent to the main topic of the text, where it seemed as if it were a stretch to work in a mention of the image. I don't blaim the companies for wanting to keep everything about their work a secret, but without any specifics the general discussions in this book were essentially unillustrated and not very useful. I wish they would publish a more technical and specific book about lighting and rendering and compositing for visual-effects film-making!

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't buy this book, May 29, 2007

By	M. Almeida - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

While this book has some good information, it has one major (and I mean Major) flaw. This book is about CG lighting and yet no effort was put into the reproduction of the images in it. Virtually every rendered 3D image printed in this book is so dark that you can't see any of the lighting features the author is talking about in those images (I really don't know why they were included at all). I am not kidding! Please, before you buy this book, go to a bookstore that has a copy and look at the images in it and you will see what I mean.
My other issue is with this whole series of books. They all have a general overview of CG animation that takes up the first 25% of each book and it's virtually identical in each book. This is undoubtedly just the publisher/editors attempt to pad these books out and make them feel as though they are thick and comprehensive. I mean, Come on! if I'm buying a book about CG lighting or Character Rigging, I think it's pretty safe to assume I already have a general understanding of the basics of CG animation. I won't be buying any more books in this series, and I wouldn't recommend them.